Biking to places other than work?

[BBsw]

There is a Farmer's Market right on my route home. Plus there are a couple of major grocery stores very close to my home.

I was just wondering if any of you ride to the grocery store or shopping? Where else do you ride?

[Tri Girl]

I grocery shop on my bike and do other errands (library, pharmacy, Goodwill, etc). For most errands, I use one or two panniers. For the grocery shopping I used the panniers (small trip), or the big flatbed trailer that I recently converted (big trips).
In the summer it's so hot that I find myself going to the car more often (counter productive- I know), but it's soooo hot and humid that sometimes I just can't bear to get on my bike and get even more sweaty. When I do that, I save for lots of trips all at once.

[mimitabby]

Oh, i'm so glad you asked. Where i live, traffic is SO HORRIBLE that i pretty much hate to drive anymore (not to mention the gas thing)
I ride to the market, i ride to the library; i ride to 3 different supermarkets.
I ride to my mother's house (11 miles south as the crow flies) I ride to the art store.
I am fortunate that i have an older pannier that works for groceries and stuff.
Of course, i don't buy gallons of olive oil or cat litter when i'm biking; but there is a lot of stuff i can carry easily

Go for it! it's really been fun. ( I confess that my last library acquisition was a smaller book, i was thinking about my hill climb home )

[GLC1968]

We bike all over the place right now. Out to dinner, grocery store, pet store, bank, etc. We currently live where all these things are only about 2-5 miles away, so it's easy.

Our new house is near nothing but farms. I'm guessing that most of the errands we'll likely do by bike once we move are the ones where we can hit the places on the way home from work. We'll see.

[sfa]

I live in a good location for biking to get places, so I bike regularly to the library, my kids' schools, the drug store, the playground at the state park and the Girl Scouts meeting place. If I went to the farmer's market, I'd ride there (but it's only open while I'm at work. Phooey.). If we ever ate at restaurants, I'd ride there. About the only place I don't go is the grocery store--it's in a fairly scary area and I wouldn't trust my bike to stay in one piece if I left it outside of the store.

Sarah

[Adventure Girl]

I bike to the gym. It just seems so WRONG to drive a car to the gym to take a spin class!

I've been riding my bike to this gym for about 10 years. Until this year, I would say that my bike was alone in the bike rack about 95% of the time. I live in a town that is not very bike-friendly, and people just don't ride.

In the last 6 months or so, I have noticed that about 50% of the time that I go, there is at least one other bike in the rack. But I've never seen more than 3 bikes there at a time, so biking to my gym is still not very popular!

[Crankin]

Since I am not working now, I make it a habit to ride to the library, natural food store, bike shop, and to local restaurants for lunch at least once or twice a week. I don't do major grocery shopping on my bike, though. At this time of year, I do visit the local farmers to buy produce while it is fresh.
I also ride to the gym, when I am going to do weights, core, or yoga stuff. Usually, my bike is the only one there. It's about 16 miles round trip, so I count it as a regular ride, and on my heavy hybrid bike, with a pannier.

[BBsw]

This is really neat! I can see myself stopping off at the farmer's market on the way home but for other grocery shopping, I don't know. All kinds of possibilities.

[OakLeaf]

I don't have a real job

"Up north" I've ridden to the dentist as I mentioned before. I'm still getting up my courage to ride to the gym/work. I don't have cargo carrying capacity - and I'm not sure groceries would survive the very hilly and bumpy 15 miles - so the grocery store is pretty much out.

"Down south" I ride pretty much everywhere. I've got decent sized saddlebags on my commuter, and it's less than two miles to the grocery store. Gym, church, out to eat, post office, bank, grocery shopping. Farmer's market such as it is - although I usually skip that because it's pretty pathetic

[singletrackmind]

Good ol' BOB trailer.

Everywhere.

[obie]

I am on the edge of a major city - I ride for just about all errands including work errands and meetings. My exceptions are Friday/Saturday nights (potential for crazy drivers) and things like Costco (which is only a twice/year trip anyway).

When I moved here ten years ago, I had no money and no car and it was a 20-25 minute walk to the nearest subway stop (there were buses for rainy days but they weren't as frequent). So I evolved into figuring out things for the bike. Even silly things, like only carrying a grocery store basket (instead of a shopping cart) because once the basket was too heavy, I wouldn't be able to fit things on the bike! I also have bar ends on my commuting bike - very useful for tying bags of produce from the farmers market, or hanging 1/2 gallon jugs of milk.

Oh - and I try not to do too many errands at once. I can lock up my bike only so many times before getting "errand fatigue" and getting cranky. I'm sure it would be even worse in a car, but I wouldn't know! Thankfully that's a novelty

[Tuckervill]

My son and DIL moved to a small town, and bought a house close to the town square. I fixed her up with a bike and baby trailer and she rides around town everywhere (not to the major thoroughfares, because she is concentrating on organic food and doesn't need to go anywhere but the farmer's market). She's picked doctors and dentists within biking distance. Her 3 yo son goes, too.

She's even getting a reputation. She had to walk into the bank and leave her bike outside because the ATM wasn't working. The teller asked her if she was that "gal who rides her bike everywhere?" That's too cute. She's about 6 weeks pregnant now, so I'm hoping she doesn't have any complications and can keep riding--and feels up to it--all the way through. (She had major complications last time and spent 10 weeks in the hospital.)

I bought her a Bell Citi commuting helmet. I hope she's wearing it.

Karen

[redrhodie]

My favorite place to ride to is the beach. It's $10 if you drive, but free on a bike! I carry a towel and sheet to lay on, a lock and sunscreen. That's all we need.

[TahoeDirtGirl]

I like to ride everywhere I can. I try and commute to work twice a week and where ever else I can- grocery store, etc. I love taking off early on Sat. morning and hitting the 'honor system' farm stands because they just loaded them up early in the morning. I also like to ride early in the morning because no one is on the roads and I can go and explore the narrow town streets without worrying about getting doored or ran over by someone looking at the ocean.

I just got those cool Wald wire baskets for my bike but I got sick and haven't taken it on a proper maiden voyage. Sigh....

I finally had someone ask my why I ride my bike so much...did I get a DUI? I said no, I'm saving my cash for gas to take my mountain bike to the dirt. I don't think they really got it.

[bikerHen]

Good ol' BOB trailer.

Everywhere.

+1 for the BOB trailer. My DH says I spend more time with Bob than with him. bikerHen